Haystack

One of the more unexpected delights of the visit to Kent was a glimpse of a traditional haystack, with a properly thatched, gabled roof, standing in a farmyard on Romney Marsh. I haven’t seen a real haystack for decades: near as I can remember, not since some time in the seventies. I thought they had all been swept away along with stubble-burning and milk churns. I would have liked to have taken a photo, but the lane was narrow, there was no place to park, and a white van was approaching from behind us.

Hovels* may be made so as to afford no Shelter for Rats and Mice: and by the Help of an old Sail to clap over them till they are compleated, your Corn may be as free from the Accidents of Weather, as in a Barn: only take Heed, if you thatch them, that you watch the Thatcher that he wet not his Straw, for if you don’t, he certainly will, and that will musty your Corn a pretty Way. Wherefore, some, with very good Reason, never thatch their Hay-Stacks, but make them with a very keen Slope, and rake them well down.

*stacks of corn, hay &c

Daniel Hillman

from Tusser Redivivus (1710)


The web being the remarkable place that it is, it turns out there is an entire website devoted to Hay in Art. It includes a checklist of poems about hay.


tags: haymaking

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